


Hero of Horizons, The Forgotten Champion's Travels

by Purple_Shade



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Timelines, Angst and Humor, Asexual Character, Asexual Hawke, Author Has Plans, Blue-Purple Hawke, Dimension Travel, Dragon Age Lore, Eventual Happy Ending, Gen, Loneliness, Mystery, Once I Figure It Out, Playing with Lore, Post canon, Rating will change, Romantic Asexual, Tags May Change, There Will Be A Pairing, Unromanced Hawke
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-07-06 20:15:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15893334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Purple_Shade/pseuds/Purple_Shade
Summary: Hawke finds a magical mirror unlike any she has seen. As with most things in Hawke's life she starts unravelling its mysteries by stumbling straight into it, and danger.An unfamiliar version of Thedas lays beyond.The Champion of Kirkwall is more out of her depth than ever before, how will she survive here, and why are there so many Dragons?(This is post canon- After surviving Adamant, not without scars, Hawke decides against going to Weisshaupt. After hearing about the Temple of Mythal she seeks out ancient ruins.)





	Hero of Horizons, The Forgotten Champion's Travels

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU timeline, but much of Canon will still apply. This is an unromanced Hawke who spent more time trying to learn how to handle politics, and not how to flirt.  
> She's a mess but she's trying. I invite you to take this journey with her.

Hawke paced the huge dusty room, the hollow sound of her agitated footsteps echoed back to her.  
Caution warred with curiosity, tugging her back and forth between her two great drives until all she felt was indecisive.  
She paused to stare at the source of her tumult, a mirror the like of an eluvian stood alone in an alcove at one end of the empty ruined hall.  
Curiosity had gotten her into half of every dangerous situation she'd lived through, and she knew herself well enough to know she would probably ultimately put interest over risk here too.  
Still, if she touched it and anything went wrong there was no one to save her. The thought was frightening; for all that she had acclimated to self reliance, she had never gotten over the fear of being stuck down without a chance to fight.  
' _Plus, that survival thing is still a priority._ ' she mused.

The enormous mirror shimmered with an unnatural light, bright and blue as the sky on a sunny day, tantalizing in its secrets.  
Hawke's dark hair and light eyes appeared faint and clouded when reflected in its surface at a distance, sharpening the closer she walked to the mirror.  
Glittering golden sparks floated out. Walking near she noticed the little lights seemed to fizzled out in a halo, reaching their limit 10 paces from the mirror. She moved just outside their arc and was intrigued when they seemed drawn to her, careening off course toward her. Yet each made it no farther out of the set circumference, 10 paces around the mirror and no farther. Even if they'd been drawn twice that distance from the other side of the alcove, they were equally lively and then fizzled. Hawke closed her eyes feeling for the ripples in the fade which would indicate a spell. The mirror was saturated in magic, but the area around it seemed bare in comparison. If there was a barrier she couldn't  feel it, which meant either it was so far beyond her skill she'd walk right into it, or it wasn't there. Both options only managed to compel her more into wanting to test it. She weighed the possibilities, and decided it wasn't more dangerous than a lot of other things she'd lived through poking at, having always had an over keen desire to touch the forbidden and unknown.  

Cautiously she walked forward, preparing for the pain if the sparks burned as scintillas of fire might.  A few immediately settled on her outstretched hand making a small tinkeling sound, she jumped back, skin-tinglng at the points they'd touched. Pulling back sleeves to check, she saw nothing abnormal. The sensation faded. Curious, she poked herself with healing magic to be sure, but couldn't sense anything different.

Hawke stepped back, frowning as she thought.  
_'What are you? Magic surely, but what for... As long as you aren't one of those fairytale mirrors that show you your greatest rival. With my luck I'd never know, because it'd be me.'_

As disconcerting as the sensations had been, she couldn't resist the idea of getting closer, stepping lightly as she moved forward. This time she noticed the sparks merely got close without landing. Far more interested in the mirror itself she ignored the jingling bell sounds of the little lights as they flitted around her. Stepping ever closer, until, she reached out, near enough to touch the frame. Hesitant to make contact, her finger tips hovered above it. She could feel the magic, warm as the daylight it mimicked. Hawke used her own magic to reach out, searching carefully for a response. It was immediate, the power of the mirror seemed to dance with the tiny tendril of power she'd extended, she pressed, and the magic pressed back. The power built, Hawke felt it pushing physically against her palm, much like a barrier. Suddenly it changed, the pressure dissipated, melting over her hand like liquid and seeping into her. Alarmed she withdrew her hand quickly, backing up. A tingling was running up her whole arm, and with some difficulty she reigned in her panic, knowing it wouldn't help. Mentally taking a step back to examine the sensations, and even as she considered it the feeling was fading. Hawke relaxed.  
Reaching forward to test again, produced the same result.  
' _Good. At least I can get near it. Maybe I can figure out what I'm messing with here.'_ She thought.

Hawke had seen eluvians, knew they could be profoundly dangerous, blighted or possibly worse. She didn't even know for sure if this was an eluvian, but if so that didn't answer much. They could potentially do amazing and improbable things, but we're a mystery unto themselves. Merrill had gone on at length about her mirror as she had restored it, talking about all the things they might have been, a way to communicate, a way to channel the fade, and according to some stories a door to the fade itself. 

Word had gotten back to her, via Varric of course, that the last one was true, doorways to realms known and unknown. She wasn't sure how she felt about that, her mind moving back to the precipice she'd faced. She shook herself and set the thoughts aside for now, considering instead other similar  artifacts she'd seen.   
The mirror at the black emporium came to mind, its powers over an individuals physical form were incredible, although in an entirely undoorlike way. Then again, Hawke wasn't certain that had been an eluvian either.

Now that she was very close it was easier to get a good look at the details hidden from afar by the halo of light.  
Remembering Merrill talking about the meanings of elvhen carving on artifacts, Hawke could almost hear her voice as she inspected the edges.  
_'The Elves used to make such beautiful things. Every detail means something, it's a bit like a book, except written in pictures. Even this little leaf pattern right here, it's a Lysallan leaf, and it only looks like that in the dry season. So I think it symbolizes summer-- or maybe it's meant to represent the time it takes for summer to go by. Or maybe-- Well, I'm still figuring it out._ '  
Hawke smiled at the memory, Merrill might not know to get around a city, but she sure did know a lot about Elven culture. Shaking her head she refocused on the patterns in front of her.  
There was a leaf pattern here, small crescent shaped leaves on spiral branches. Raising her eyes up she saw the whole frame was covered in intricate carvings. Each of the sides had a powerful looking dragon upon a filigree pattern. There were also jutting portions at the edges that didn't seem to match the rest of the carving, these sported natural motifs mixed with intricate symbols.  
Leaning her shoulder against the wall she tilted her head and looked around to the back. It was covered in trees and leaves of an entirely different art style than the dragons. She pressed back and looked at the front, leaned and looked at the back. Something was strange, the foliage portions matched the jutting pieces on the front indicating they had probably been part of a single design by one carver.  
' _Maybe the original design? Or was it a collaborative effort?_ '   
Though Hawke was no expert, it seemed to her that the carving on the hindside might indeed be elvhen, a rather distinctive style she'd gotten used to seeing in ruins, but the dragons on the front didn't seem it.  
A thought occurred to her, perhaps it had once been an eluvian but had been re-purposed.  
' _How would that even work?_ ' She wondered how much effort it would take to alter it, and the possibilities if you could harness and re-purposed that level of powerful magics. It boggled.

This was getting to be too much, she needed a break. Retreating out of the hall and into a room adjacent which might once have served as a grand dining room, she retrieved her pack and began laying out her bed roll for the night.

Evenings had become difficult for Hawke.  
The ruins she had been seeking out had kept her occupied enough to leave some of her loneliness out of mind, but right at this moment she missed her friends so strongly it felt as though she were weighted down by the emotion.  
Her mother would have said it was best not to dwell on it, but the memory of Leandra Hawke was just one more sharp stick at her back, driving her far from home. It had been comforting at first, now the distance between herself and all she knew seemed like an ever growing chasm.  
Perhaps tomorrow a raven would find her with a scroll of a familiar scrawl, and she'd feel remembered and that would be enough. Maybe she would wake up refreshed and secure in the knowledge that she could take on the world alone if she had to. Or, perhaps the chasm would just swallow her whole, and her desire to be needed or wanted would peter out in the void along with the rest of her.   
Each option seemed as likely to her just now.   
  
She stared at the wall willing her mind to empty itself of these irksome thoughts, and noticed a line of soft blue light bouncing off the wall. Hawke rolled over and saw the azure glow was coming from under the door to the hall.  
It was a low light, and the mirror was almost certainly the source. Hawke's mind drifted back to the curious object on the other side of the door, nestled in an alcove just its size at the far end of a once grand hall.   
She wondered who might have put it here, if the frame gave any clues as to the type of magic it possessed, ways she might be able to test it. In the steady glow of the light her thoughts slowed, and eventually Hawke smoothly nodded off into her first calm rest in months, dreaming of possibilities.

\-------------------------

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gently made suggestions and constructive criticism are welcome! I'm fragile but happy to have input :)
> 
> Please kindly let me know if you spot errors.  
> I have no beta and I'm dyslexic af, so I will miss things... probably a lot of thing, I'm sorry.  
> Likely when I get far enough I'll have to go back and re-edit everything.


End file.
